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The Public Interest Involved 

in the Cornell Forestry 

Experiment 



BY 

EDWARD M: SHE PAR D 



New York 
P'ebruary, 1904 






CONTENTS. 



Page. 
Notes upon the Public Interest Involved in this Forestry Experi- 
ment 5 

Extracts from President Roosevei,T's Address upon Forestry 

and Foresters 20 

History of Forest Engineering in the United States, by R. \V. 

Raymond 21 

Letter, Professor R. W. Raymond 25 

Editorial, A^. >'. Evening Post, Feb. 20, 1902 26 

Editorial, N. V Evening Post, June 6, 1905 27 



In exchange a . 

MAY 16 1913 






PREFACE 



The following notes were prepared for and submitted to the Attor- 
nej'-General of the State of New York in connection with a legal 
argument against the " application of Eric P. Swenson to bring suit 
to have the title to 30,000 acres of land purchased by Cornell Univer- 
sity vested forthwith in the name of the people of the State of New 
York and to abrogate the contract between Cornell University and 
the Brooklyn Cooperage Company." 

Briefly the history of the case is as follows : 

By law enacted in 1898 (chap. 122) Cornell University was invited 
by the State to carry on an experiment for the demonstration of for- 
estry methods on a tract of land purchased by the State and deeded 
for thirty years to Cornell University for that purpose. To carry out 
this demonstration or experiment, and also for the purpose of giving 
instruction in forestry, the State instituted the New York State Col- 
lege of Forestry under the direction of the Trustees of Cornell Uni- 
versity. . 

For the maintenance of the College an annual appropriation of 
$10,000 was provided. For the carrying out of the demonstration a 
working fund of $30,000 was provided, and by laws 1900 (chap. 419) 
the income from the forest management was also to become available 
for conducting the experiment ; it being expected that by the sale of 
the harvested crop enough revenue might be secured to pay for the 
management, the planting of waste areas, and, where necessary, of 
logged areas, and for other improvements. In other words the exper- 
iment was to be conducted on business principles and to become self 
supporting. 

Operations in the demonstration area or College Forest were begun 
in 1899 by surveying and districting the forest, securing the necessary 
data for management, establishing nurseries for the growing of plant 
material, and planting some waste areas. In 1900 a contract was 
made between Cornell University and the Brooklyn Cooperage Com- 
pany for the sale of the wood that migljt be cut in the College Forest 
under forest management, and logging operations were begun. 

In 1902 Mr. Eric P. Swenson, owner of a summer home adjoining 
the College tract, being annoyed at the proximity of the logging 
operations, raised the question of the constitutionality of this State 
enterprise before the then Attorney-General, basing his objection 



upon the clause in the Constitution which forbids the cutting of trees 
on State lands and upon other points. The Attorney-General decided 
adversely to the petitioner. 

In 1903, a new Attorney-General having come into office, Mr. 
Swenson renewed his petition, which is at present still pending. In 
answer to this petition to set aside the State's experiment, Mr. 
Shepard, on behalf of the Brooklyn Cooperage Company, prepared a 
brief and accompanied the legal argument with a general discussion 
of the propriety of the State's enterprise, which being of general 
public interest, is here reprinted. 

Meanwhile the Governor has vetoed the appropriation which the 
Legislature at its last session voted for the maintenance of the College, 
thereby destroying the technical agency which was to conduct and 
supervise the forestry work. The logging operations being re- 
quired under valid private contract between the University and the 
Cooperage Company are, however, continued without such super- 



THE PUBLIC INTEREST INVOLVED IN THE 
CORNELL FORESTRY EXPERIMENT. 



The prohibition of the constitution prevents any cutting of timber, 
whether for illustrative education or for profit, or for any purposes 
upon the Adirondack or Catskill lands now owned by the State. The 
constitution requires that the lands be kept, " wild," that is to say, 
free from artificial cutting or planting or care. In other words, the 
constitution of the State forbids any practice of forestry in its own 
forests, and requires them to be kept as a perfectly natural park or 
pleasure ground. Therefore it is that, if the State, — for the sake of 
its enormous industrial interests involved and because of peril to those 
interests already commenced and certain to increase from year to 
year, — is to conduct a forestry experiment at its own expense, it must 
arrange for the experiment upon lands not owned by the State, or, at 
least, not yet owned by it. Upon sound public policy, it would seem 
to be perfectly consistent with this legal necessity that the State 
should do what it has done here. That is to say, — by contract pro- 
cure a private owner to conduct the experiment on his own lands, and 
in consideration of such experiment under State auspices and of an 
agreement at the end of thirty years to convey the land to the State, — 
the State to provide such private person with the means of purchasing 
the lands. 

It is easy to show that it has been, and still is, both the policy of 
this State and its interest, — either in this way or in some way equally 
effective, — to promote knowledge of the art of forestry. 

It is, of course, obvious, — whatever inconsistent and careless ex- 
pressions may be found on the part of those not expert, — that the art 
of forestry means the provision of a timber supply. The maintenance 
of the State lands on the Adirondack plateau in a " wild " condition 
is not forestry. It is the maintenance of a park or a pleasure ground, 
or what is well called by the experts a "luxury forest." It ministers 
to the pleasure of large numbers of citizens ; and doubtless the forest, 
though thus kept as a wild pleasure ground, protects the head waters 
of the Hudson and other streams. But neither a park use nor the 
protection of water sources requires practice of the art of forestry. 
The mere maintenance of a police to prevent timber depredations and 
the kindling of fires, and to suppress conflagrations, is not forestry. 
In the consideration of this problem, it is of first consequence to real- 
ize that true forestry is the art of securing a permanent timber supply 



of the highest practicable character from the tract of land upon which 
the art is practiced. This was very well put by President Roosevelt 
in his recent address before the Society of American Foresters, por- 
tions of which will be hereafter quoted. He then said that " the very 
existence of lumbering, of course, — and lumbering is the fourth great 
industry of the United States, — depends upon the success of our work 
as a nation in putting practical forestry into effective operation." 
That is to say, the end of the forestry art is the permanent promotion 
of the great national industry of lumbering. It is concerned with the 
best and most economical production of trees for industrial consump- 
tion, that is to say, to be cut for lumbering purposes. Fortunately 
for considerations of natural beauty and the protection of water 
sources, such perpetual supply of timber to be cut for lumber necessi- 
tates the maintenance of great standing forests, since the trees which 
are to be cut must, in order to meet the requirements of the lumber- 
men, have an age of at least from fifty to one hundred j'cars. The 
area of the forest land covered by standing trees must always be so 
many times greater than the forest area cut over and not yet again 
covered with growth, that the latter area will be relatively unimpor- 
tant. 

The art of forestry is new to America. It is here understood as 
yet by only a few and far-seeing men. Until lately, the existing 
natural supply of standing timber was assumed to be inexhaustible. 
It seemed unnecessary, therefore, to invest either capital or labor to 
aid the growth of forest trees, although it was plain to every one 
that capital and labor ought to be, and might profitably be invested 
in the systematic planting of fruit trees. Of late, however, the 
nation has been responsibly warned that it is perilously near an 
exhaustion of its timber supply, and that vast national industries of 
the next generation are seriously involved in the peril. Timber will 
have to be treated as a crop ; and forests will have to be cultivated as 
carefully as orchards or vineyards or gardens or grainfields. The one 
significant difference between agriculture and 5z7t'zculture is the 
greater lapse of time in the latter between planting and harvest. 

It is a wholesome general rule, under a democratic government 
like ours, that private capital and wisdom ought to be, and will be, 
supplied to meet the necessities of private industries, future as well 
as present. But in forestry there is an exception. The future timber 
supply or crop cannot safely be left to mere individual initiative, and 
for the plain reason that there cannot, under existing American con- 
ditions, be any immediate returu to private capital or private labor 
from an investment in the planting of forest trees. The very many 
years required for the growth of a forest tree, equalling or exceeding 



the lifetime of a middle-aged man, — the absence of American pre- 
cedents in the forestry art, — and the relatively quick returns to capi- 
tal in other and ordinary investments, — all these effectually deter 
private persons and private capital from undertaking the planting of 
forests. So it is that, — even in our democratic republic, and not- 
withstanding our wholesome dislike of extending governmental 
functions, — it will have to be conceded that the promotion of the 
forestry art is of necessity a public function. It is the government, 
and only the government, which can effectively protect the future of 
our national industries and of the nation itself from danger of timber 
famine which will not become present and practical for fiftv or 
seventy-five or one hundred years to come. 

Now, all these truths have been of late distinctly and authorita- 
tively recognized by the State of New York, the richest and most 
powerful of American commonwealths and one having industries 
enormous and diverse. The present application invites the Attorney- 
General to attack this declared policy of the State, and, in so doing, 
to strike a blow at its permanent interests. Mr. Swenson, and the 
others who support this attack, insist that it is the interest of the 
State at large expense to maintain a forest park for the recreation of 
such of its citizens as are able to pay the cost of an outing in it. Nor 
do we criticise their view. We concede that such a park will be 
useful. We assert, however, — what Mr. Swenson and his associate 
proprietors of Adirondack camps do not see, — that it is Jvastly more 
to the interest of the State of New York and of its great industries, 
and of its laboring masses, to promote for the next generation, and 
for the generations thereafter to come, the use of its natural forest 
lands for a perpetual timber supply, and to preserve the State, — and 
to help preserve the nation, — from the very great calamity of a 
failure of their timber supply, by now and in time providing for its 
renewal. In so doing, the water sources will likewise be protected. 
Mr. Swenson and his neighbors do not see that the 1165,000 thus far 
appropriated by the State for the pnrpose of an example and illustra- 
tion of creative or reproductive forestry and the dedication to it of a 
relatively small tract of land, — the 30,000 acres of the Santa Clara 
tract are less than 2 per ceyit. of the area of the Adirondack Jorest, — 
are but a beginning, and a small beginning, of what the State of 
New York should do, and inevitably will do, in this enlightened cause. 

I ask the Attorney-General briefly to consider, — 

First, the lumber necessities of the United States and of its industries. 

Second, the limited present supply of standing timber and the 
approaching danger that, without artificial reproduction, the supply 
will be exhausted. 



Third, the ability of the forestry art, as Cornell University has in- 
tended and begun to illustrate it upon the 30,000 acre tract in ques- 
tion,— to meet the danger of timber exhaustion, and to provide a per- 
petual and inexhaustible supply. 

Fourth, the definite adoption by the State of New York of the 
public policy of promoting the forestry art, — and for the reason that, 
under existing American conditions, this cannot safely be left to 
private capital. 

1. Lumber Requirements of the United States. 

According to statistics given by the census of 1900 the yearly value 
of the reported output of sawmills, planing mills and timber camps 
-was 1566,832,984 and the quantity of sawed lumber 35,084,166,000 feet 
B. M. Census figures for such products are always more or less de- 
fective, and are deemed by experts below the truth ; so that, for prac- 
tical purposes, we may round the figures off upwards, namely to 600 
million dollars and 40 billion feet. By processes of manufacture the 
value of this raw product is increased to at least twice the amount,*' 
so that the annual forest supplies of the nation in their industrial 
value represent approximately 1,200 million dollars, an amount prob- 
ably not less than the annual amount of all the mining products and 
metal manufactures of the United States. ( Table LX/, 12th Census 
Report, Vol. II, p. clxiv. ) 

Tt) this enormous amount, which represents only the materials used 
in the arts, must be added the value of fuelwood. Tbis is not ascer- 
tained by the census of 1900 ; but, on the basis of the census statistics 
of 18S0 when account was taken of the fuelwood consumption, it has 
been estimated to have amounted together with fencing material in 
1S90 to 450 million dollars*^ raising tlie value of our annual consump- 
tion of forest products to over 1,650 million dollars. 

The 40 billion feet B. M. of sawed and manufactured material may 
be correctly estimated to represent 7 billion cubic feet of round ma- 
terial*^ as it grows in the woods, while the fuelwood, fencing material, 
etc., represent over 18 billion cubic feet. The former requires the 
straight, large-sized, branchless bodj'wood of trees, which goes into 
logs and which, in the natural forest, requires for development not 



*' This statement is based upon a calculation on the basis of the 
Census of i8go in " Economics of Forestry '' by B. E. Fernoiv, p. 427. 

"^"^See ''Economics of Forestry,'" p. 428. 

*'* See ''Outlook for the Timber Supply of the United States,'* 
Forestry Quarterly, Vol. i, Nos. 2 and 3. 



less than one hundred and fifty to two hundred years, and in the 
foresters' forest from eighty to one hundred and twenty years. 

Since, according to the census statistics the average stand per acre 
in the better class of forestland, owned by lumbermen, throughout the 
United States is 6,700 feet B. M., the lumber supply alone requires 
annually the cut of about 1,000,000 acres. Although much of the 
fuelwood might be cut from the same acreage, it largely is not so se- 
cured ; and, assuming a stand of 40 cords per acre, the additional cut 
of 4,000,000 acres is required to furnish this item of our wood con- 
sumption. Altogether 5 million acres must therefore be cut annually 
to supply the present wants of the industries of the American people.** 

Since, with the increase of population, the use of materials increases, 
it is not likely that the consumption, which now represents about 350 
cubic feet per capita will soon diminish. Indeed, the census statistics 
show that "while the population in the last fifty years grew by 228 
percent., its lumber bill during the same period grew by 840 per 
cent."** . 

And, as has been recently shown, all industrial nations have during 
the last forty years increased their per capita wood consumption from 
year to year by from 5 to 10 per cent.*' The census statistics show a 
greater increase for the United vStates ; and it is well within reason to 
assume that the increase of industrial activity and the growth of civil- 
ization have had and will have the same tendency in our country as in 
European nations, that is to say, to bring an increase in wood con- 
sumption in spite of substitutes. 

One other point of highest importance is brought out in the census 
statistics *^, namely, that as far as lumber supply is concerned, the 
conifers (pine, spruce, hemlock, cedar, etc.) furnish three-quarters of 
our consumption and hence are the most important factor in the pro- 
vision of lumber for American industry. 

2. Available Timber Supplies. 

The question, IV/iat are the American resources to meet the grow- 
ing American demand for wood products, is not as readily answered 
as the question of consumption ; for the necessary statistical data are 
scanty. It is only possible to make a calculation upon probabilities. 
This has been done in detail by Prof. Fernow in chap XI of his work 
on "Economics of Forestry," on p. 38. In quoting this work of Prof. 
Fernow we feel bound to commend it to the Attorney-General as an 
able and trustworthy treatise. No educated man, — certainly no edu- 
cated man who has a general knowledge of industrial and agricultural 



**'See '^Economics of Forestry,'' p. 480. 
*^See '■'Economics of Forestry,'' p. 482. 



conditions in our country, — can read the book otherwise than with 
intense and sustained interest. It is by far the best and most impor- 
tant work on forestry which deals with American conditions. 

Prof. Fernow concludes that, at best, not more than about 2,000 
billion feet of timber ready for the axe and satisfactory for logs with 
our present standards are at hand ; and that this means a supply suffi- 
cient to meet our present requirements for fifty years, but, if the same 
annual rate of increase in consumption continues, not sufficient for 
thirty years. The census compiler, making similar calculations, 
comes to about the same result as to the amount of standing timber.*^ 

But, as regards the coniferous supply, which, as has been stated, is 
the most important, furnishing three-quarters of American consump- 
tion, neither authority makes the stand more than 1,100 billion feet,*' 
which, even if present requirements shall not be exceeded, must be 
exhausted in less than forty jears. 

Nor can permanent relief be had by importation from other coun- 
tries. Their present product is required for their own consumption or 
the consumption of other countries. Canada alone is to be considered, 
the South American continent being almost entirely deficient in 
coniferous supplies. 

Clearly, therefore, relief must come either, first, from reduction in 
the consumption of American industry, or, secondly, by reproduction 
of the haryest. The former relief is most difficult, perhaps impossi- 
ble, to accomplish, except as it shall come about through increase in 
wood prices as the situation shall become fully known and realized. 
Such a relief would in reality be no relief, for it would consist, not in 
solving the difficulties and hardships of inadequate timber supply, but 
in bearing those hardships, as other and at present less favored na- 
tions and peoples have to bear them. The only alternative relief is to 
be accomplished by the introduction of industrial forestry. 

3. Forestry Practice. 

There remains, therefore, no doubt that American industry has 
reached that stage of development when artificial reproduction of 
timber must be begun. The American nation, as it grows old and 
densely populated, must adopt the same means of securing timber 
supply which other civilized nations have been forced to adopt. In 
other words, the American people must come to the practice of true 
or industrial forestry. If sooner, then better, more cheaply, and with 
less disaster to succeeding generations. If later, then with more 
disaster, — and indeed very great calamity, — to those who are to fol- 
low us. 



*^See note page 8. 



II 

It needs no argument to show that a permanent timber supply can 
be practically secured only bj' harvesting and at the same time per- 
petuating the forest, — preserving it as all life is preserved, namely, by 
reproduction. In other words, forestry^ is the art of producing w'ood 
crops, as agriculture is the art of producing food crops. Since, how- 
ever, trees grow naturally and without the aid of man, it might be 
suggested that nature left to itself will reproduce the forests. So it 
does; but it produces not only the kinds which we desire the most, 
but as freely, — and to the exclusion of a large part of a true timber 
crop, — the kinds which are useless. So in agriculture we know that 
nature left to itself produces w-eeds as readily as useful vegetables or 
grain. Nor does unaided nature produce as amply as does aided 
nature, the quality of the timber required. Nor does unaided nature 
economize in time of production or attempt the maximum quantity. 
It is only under the guidance of man that nature will produce out of 
the earth the largest amount of any useful material in the shortest 
time. And that is, for timber, the aim of forestry. 

Such reproduction of timber can be secured in various ways. The 
forester may direct nature so that it shall reproduce from the seeds of 
older trees, which for a time are left standing as mother or seed trees. 
Or the forester maj' use the simpler, surer, swifter method of harvest- 
ing the old crop entirely and replacing it by a planted crop, as the 
farmer does. Which method is to be emplo)'ed depends, so the ex- 
perts tell us, upon a large number of technical details and financial 
considerations, which cannot usefully be considered here. It is clear, 
however, even to the layman, that, where nature does not provide the 
kind of trees which the forester desires in the old stand, only the last 
method, that of artificial reproduction, can be applied. 

The Federal Bureau of Forestry, for instance, is busily engaged in 
the makinj, of "working plans," which are based in most cases on 
the theory of securing the perpetuation of the forest by natural seed- 
ing. They prescribe a diameter below which trees are not to be cut. 
That is a conservative method of utilizing the present supplies, since 
it forces the owner, as it is claimed, to leave unused portions which 
otherwise he would for an immediate and lesser profit use prematurely. 
But the motive there is financial gain to the proprietor. He is told 
that, by waiting, his trees will grow to better values. But from the 
standpoint of silviculture, that is, the art of wood cropping for the 
future, there is much to be said on the other side. Certainly as long 
as undesirable species are left on the ground to compete for soil, light 
and air with the new progeny, the reproduction of the valuable species 
can only be partially successful. 

Into these expert differences of detail we cannot, of course, enter 



12 

here. The very purpose of the State in establishing a College of For- 
estry at Cornell and of equipping it with a considerable tract of land 
for its necessary experiments was to help public sentiment reach con- 
clusions as to what must be done under American conditions. The 
details had to be left to experts. The Brooklyn Cooperage Company 
ver}' certainly had every right to suppose that, in this matter, Cornell 
University would follow the advice of the most trustworthy expert to 
be had. It is open to no doubt whatever that Cornell's appointment 
of Prof. Fernow to the head of its forestry college was generally rec- 
ognized as most natural and suitable. In this field he was one of the 
first experts,— very probably the first, in our country. Under the 
contract in question the Company subjected itself to the forestry reg- 
ulations which might be prescribed by Cornell University. 

We take it, therefore, that the Attorney-General will not go into 
the question whether one method or another method of practicing 
forestrj' upon the Cornell tract is the better. Very certainly the 
legislature and the Governor originally meant to leave the determina- 
tion of such technical questions to those who were trained to the 
work. The very odd suggestion which seems to have been hospitably 
received in some public quarters, that the practice of forestry on the 
Cornell tract must proceed without cutting down trees is paralleled 
only by the famous requirement of the lady who bade her daughter 
learn to swim, but forbade her to "go near the water." 

Before leaving this matter of the method of procedure upon the 
Cornell tract, — irrelevant as it clearly is to the question before the 
Attorney General, — we feel bound, however, to add that there seems 
to be great and apparently irresistible force in Prof. Fernow's answer 
to the criticism upon the methods followed by Cornell. He has 
pointed out that this was not a forest to be maintained for money 
profit like the great government forests in Germany or the Biltmore 
estate forests in North Carolina, but that it was a "demonstration 
forest " upon which Cornell University was under agreement with the 
State to conduct operations for the instruction of its pupils in forestry. 
The University was required by the State, as is pointed out in the 
accompanying brief upon the law, to secure an immediate income 
from the land, possible only by cutting ; and for the proceeds of such 
cutting the University was to render an account. The Federal Bureau 
of Forestry was engaged upon a demonstration of the value of the 
negative forestry policy, that is to say, of letting the forests, while 
standing, propagate themselves. All the more on this account Cor- 
nell University, if it were to secure tbe maximum educational use 
from its forests, had to demonstrate the value of a positive forest 
policy, that of replacing an old and very mature group of less valua- 



13 

ble species by a more valuable young group of more desirable species. 
The criticism that the College had not replanted the entire acreage 
already denuded or made ready for replanting is offered in apparent 
ignorance of the fact that the College was deprived of the revenue 
which was necessary. Its revenue received from the Cooperage Com- 
pany was insufificient. The College reasonably counted upon a con- 
tinuance of the State aid which had been morally promised. 

4. The Forest Policy of the State. 

The interest of the State of New York in promoting the art of for- 
estry goes back many years. Gov. DeWitt Clinton, in his speech to 
the State Senate on January 2, 1822, said [Governors' Speeches, Ed. 
of 1825 at p. 190): 

" Our forests are rapidly falling before the progress of settlement ; 
and a scarcity of wood for fuel, ship and house building and other 
useful purposes is already felt in the increasing prices of that indis- 
pensable article. No system of plantation for the production of trees 
and no system of economy for their preservation has been adopted 
and probably none will be until severe privations are experienced." 

In 1872, upon the urgency of Ex-Gov. Horatio Seymour, a states- 
man to whom this Commonwealth is under an infinite obligation for 
Jiis many wise and far-seeing appeals on behalf of its permanent 
interests, a Slate Park Commission was appointed to deal with the 
question of constituting a State park out of the wild lands north of 
the Mohawk. It was not, however, until 1884 when the problem 
was seriously taken up by a State Commission, of which Prof. C. S. 
Sargent was chairman and Messrs. D. Willis James, William A. 
Poucher and Edward M. Shepard were the members. In 1885, after 
a careful examination of the Adirondack region and a prolonged 
consideration of the subject, that Commission recommended to the 
Legislature the establishment of the Forest Preserve and other legis- 
lation looking to the establishment of a State forest. The legislation 
drafted by this Commission was not fully enacted ; but the general 
policy which the Commission recommended was initiated, and later 
developed ; and, with some modification, it is to-day the policy of 
the State. The act of 1885 established a permanent Forest Com- 
mission. 

Obviously, the first duty of the State and of its Forest Commis- 
sioners was to reduce to the utmost the reckless cutting of timber, 
and for this reason above all others, that there was no provision for 
the reproduction of the forest. It was, however, impossible for any 
one to perceive that — however beneficial and useful a recreation or 
luxury forest might be, and however serviceable to the protection of 



14 

the sources of the Hudson — the forestry problem for a great indus- 
trial community like New York was much larger, and that it was of 
momentous importance to the State to demonstrate that forest lands 
could be so treated as that, in general, the forest cover would be 
preserved, while, at the same time, the land would yield from genera- 
tion to generation the valuable and necessary crops of trees. Therefore 
it was that the Forest Commission, in its report for 1890 {p. go) said : 

"Your Commission is fully apprised of the prejudice that exists in 
many quarters against felling trees of any sort and under any circum- 
stances in the Adirondack forest. Considering the manner in which 
trees have been heretofore cut and the devastation that has been 
wrought by crude and thoughtles'- methods, this prejudice is not 
surprising; nevertheless, it is a prejudice. ' Woodman, spare that 
tree' is poetical ; but it is not business-like when we talk of forestry. 
No scheme of forestry is complete that does not contemplate the 
preservation and cultivation of timber for the sake of wood to be used 
for merchantable purposes ; and the merest tyro in the school of for- 
estry knows that mature trees for timber purposes can be cut to the 
pecuniary advantage of the owner and still leave the forest intact so 
far as regards all that is included in scientific forestry which has re- 
gard to our water supply for industrial and agricultural purposes, to 
our future supply of timber and to sanitary ends. '•' * * Forestry 
is not opposed to having trees cut down in the proper way ; they must 
be cut to supply the world with timber." 

Even as early as 1884 the first Forest Commission (Messrs. Sargent,* 
James, Poucher and Shepard) in its report to the Legislature on a 
proper forest policy, said [p 22) : 

"The manufacture of lumber cut in the Adirondack woods and the 
gathering of other crops of the forest is a valuable and important in- 
dustry to the State. This business employs a considerable capital and 
a large number of men, both in the woods and in the manufacturing 
centres located on the banks of the principal streams flowing from 
the Adirondack Plateau. It is needless perhaps to point out that the 
life of ihis business is also dependent upon the life of the forests, and 
if these are destroyed this whole business will disappear and the capi- 
tal now invested in the mills and tanneries engaged in manufacturing 
the products of these forests will be lost. In this connection, tnore- 
over, it must be borne in mind, that lumber becomes everj' year more 
difficult to obtain throughout the world ; that its value in future must 
increase in at least the same proportion as it has increased in the past 
quarter of a century ; and that the advantage from a purely commer- 
cial point of view, of retaining in permanent forest, regions adapted 
to produce forests and nothing else will be greater as the value of for- 
est products advances under the stimulating influence of increased de- 
mand and decreased supply. 

"The Adirondack region, if the experience of other countries in forest 
management teaches anything, could be made to maintain and increase, 
under a wise and comprehensive policy, the annual output of lumber 
without serious injury to the forests as reservoirs of moisture or as 
health resorts for the people ; and it is clearly in the interests of the 



15 

owners of forest property as well as for the people of this State, to en- 
courage the adoption of any system of management which will ensure 
such results." 

Governor Hill, in a special message asking the Legislature to ap- 
point a Commission, said to the Legislature on 20th January, 1890 
[Public Papers, p. 52) : 

"I think the Adirondack forests, instead of being an expense and 
burden to the State, are capable, under the liberal policy here sug- 
gested, of paying all the expenses of their preservation as well as of 
yielding a handsome revenue to the State." 

In its report for 1891, (/>. i*/) the Forest Commission said : 

"The original idea (the establishment of the Adirondack park) 
called for forest preservation with reference only to protecting the 
head waters of our rivers and providing a future economic and per- 
petual timber supply. But lately the acquisition has been demanded 
by the public for a necessary and healthful pleasure resort, and the 
original movement has become largely subordinated to the latter one. " 

Gov. Flower, in bis memorandum filed with Assembly Bill No. 1422 
to establish the Adirondack Park, said {Public Papers, i8g2,p. /go) : 

" Eventually the State preserve ought to pay the expense of its 
maintenance from the judicious sale of timber and the leasing of 
small parcels of land to individuals for the establishment of small 
homes under proper regulations." 

In his message to the Legislature of 1S93 Gov. Flower said {Public 
Papers, p. 38): 

" The establishment of a great forest preserve could be made to pay 
all or a large part of its cost under intelligent and wise legislative super- 
vision. Without injury, but, rather, with benefit, the Slate could ac- 
quire considerable revenue by granting permission to fell trees above 
a certain diameter on State lands." 

So in Gov. Flower's address of welcome to the American Forestry 
Association at Albany on i6th March, 1894 {Public Papers, p. j/o) : 

" Following the ideas and suggestions which have been promulgated 
by the forestry experts belonging to your association, we intend that 
our forests shall not only protect our water supply and thereby our 
agricultural and commercial interests and furnish summer homes and 
sanitariums for our people, but they shall at the same time yield a 
revenue which shall pay the cost of maintenance and a handsome sum 
besides." 

The revised Forestry Act of 1893 {Chap. 332 of the Laws 0/1893) 
expressly authorizes the sale of timber. Sect. 103 is as follows : 

"Sale of timber on forest preserve. The Forest Commis- 
sioners may sell any spruce and tamarack timber which is not less 
than twelve inches in diameter at a height of three feet above the 
ground standing in any part of the forest preserve, and poplar timber 
of such size as the Forest Commission may determine ; and the pro- 



i6 

ceeds of such sales shall be turned over to the vState Treasurer, by 
•whom they shall be placed to the credit of the special fund estab- 
lished for the purchase of lands within the Adirondack park." 

In its report for 1897 [p. 343) the Forest Commission pointed out 
that no contracts for the sale or cutting of timber had been made and 
that none had been sold or cut ; and it added : 

" Having obtained forest control, the testhetic advantages which 
have hitherto entered into this matter to the exclusion of the main 
qriestion of future timber supply and State revenues, will be in<ident 
ally obtained and that too without further expense or care. * ^^ * 
The State through the provisions of the contract could control the 
timber cutting and in time would come into absolute possession of the 
forest. The lumberman would be able to obtain his supply of logs, 
but under restrictions which would insure forest pre.'-ervation and a 
future timber supply." 

The Constitutional Convention of 1894, under the pressure of those 
-who desired the maintenance of the Adirondack forest solely for park 
purposes, inserted in the new organic law the clause requiring that 
all lands then owned or thereafter to become a part of the forest pre- 
serve should be " forever kept as wild forest lands." In other words, 
the new constitution withdrew from the practice of the forestry art 
the lands which the State owned or should come to own on the Adi- 
rondack plateau. The American Forestry Association expressed too 
late its disapproval of the form of the constitutional amendment, be- 
lieving as it did {^Report of the Executive Committee of the Ameri- 
can Forestry Association for the year 1894, as printed in Report of 
N. Y. Forest Commission, p. 209): 

" That forest conservation and utilization of the timber crop should 
go hand in hand, and that while a temporary cessation of lumbering 
operations, until proper forestry methods could be developed, might 
be expedient, it was undesirable and inimical to the interests of for- 
estry management to prevent for a term of twenty years (the sup- 
posed lapse of time before a constitutional provision could be 
changed) the development of such management in the State which 
had the best opportunity for doing so." 

The adoption of the Constitution of 1894 effectually forbade for the 
present, at least, the use of lands which should be actually owned by 
the State on the Adirondack plateau, in the interest of the forestry 
art. The lands actually owned were, as soon as they passed into the 
ownership of the State, to be left "wild," without planting, without 
cutting and without the exercise of any of the characteristic features 
of the forester's art. But the amendment did not forbid the State to 
promote forestry art on lands, whether on the Adirondack plateau or 
elsewhere, which should not be owned by the State. There was no 
prohibition of the illustration of industrial forestry upon lands 



17 

privately owned. Nor did the constitution forbid the scientific treat- 
ment of lands for forestry purposes before the State should itself take 
title. 

So it was that the Forest Commission, by its report for 1896 {p. 132), 
after the adoption of the constitutional amendment, made the follow- 
ing recommendation : 

" The scientific forestry which in other countries improves the for- 
est and increases its yield of timber, which makes the public wood" 
lands a source of immense perpetual revenue to the commonwealth, 
cannot be carried on without the use of the axe. * * * But all 
work of this kind in our State is prohibited by law. Moreover this 
law was made fundamental and incorporated in the new State Consti- 
tution although every experienced professional forester protested 
against the false economy involved in such legislation. * * * 
But aside from this matter of revenue and forest improvement, we be- 
lieve that the Empire State with its great forest domain should take 
the lead in this country in developing forestry methods and sound 
ideas. The woodlands of New York through proper exploitation 
should become an object lesson for all America. Although the Forest 
Preserve, — a large part of which is primitive forest in which the axe 
of the lutnberinan has never swung , — is rendered unavailable by our 
State Constitution for any such plan, something might be done to re- 
lieve the State from the ayionialous condition in which its forestry 
work has beeu placed. In view of the proposed purchase of large 
areas of woodlands, a special appropriation might be made for ac- 
quiring some tract of virgin forest in the Adirondacks, to be set 
apart especially as an experiment station where the practicability of 
carrying on scientific forestry work with profit might be demon- 
strated. ' ' 

In its report for the year 1898 the Forest Preserve Board said {p.j); 

"The forestry movement in our State has made such progress that 
it is no longer necessary in a department report to dwell on the need 
of forest preservation or provision for a future timber supply. ' ' 

In 1898 Gov. Bi^ACK in his annual message to the L,egislature said 
{Public Papers, p. 228) : 

"I am more than ever impressed with the importance of this sub- 
ject and of the necessity of the State's acquiring and preserving the 
great forests. 

' ' I referred last year to their value as a health resort and as a 
means of renewing the decreasing supply of water. There are other 
considerations not less important than those then urged. They are 
found in the rapidly diminishing supply of timber and in the great 
demands made upon the spruce forests by the pulp mills of the Adiron- 
dack region. The present constitution of the State prohibits cutting 
timber on State lands. This prohibition will souie time be changed, 
for its continuance, except utider conditions which ought not long to 
exist, would be Jinwise. The knowledge necessary to the proper 
treatment of the woods must come largely through experiment. It 
cannot be had unless the means of acquiring it are provided. I be- 



lieve the means can be secured best through the purchase by the State 
of a tract of ground covered with those trees which are to be the sub- 
ject of experiment. Such a tract the State should set apart and gain 
from it the knowledge which will enable it by and by to deal with the 
millions of acres it has already and ivill in the meantime acquire. 

"The time will come when the State will sell timber to the lumber- 
men, spruce to the pulp mills, reap a large revenue for itself and still 
retain the woods open to the public, protecting the sources of water, 
growing and yielding under intelligent cultivation. The manage- 
ment of this experiment should not be subject to the vicissitudes of 
politics. It should be placed in charge of the Regents or of the 
trustees of Cornell University or of some similar body not subject to 
political change. The State should pay such reasonable sum as may 
be needed to administer the plan. Reports should be made to the 
Governor and the Legislature annually of progress and results. The 
income from the tract so acquired should be paid to the State aud the 
land itself should become the absolute property of the State and a 
part of the Forest Preserve at the expiration of the period named. 

" I believe such a plan would be soon, if not at once, self-sustain- 
ing, for the trees now ready to be cut would produce immediate reve- 
nue and such revenue would be repeated at short intervals. The 
benefits could be hardly overstated, and in this direction, as in many 
others, the wisdom of New York entering upon a comparatively new 
and untried field, would be finally approved." 

It was after the agitation and discussion only partially exhibited by 
the extracts which we have given that, upon the advice of Gov. Black, 
Chap. 122 of the Laws of 1898 was enacted. The theory of the bill 
was this : That the public interests of the State required the promo- 
tion of industrial forestry ; that such forestry needed expert inspira- 
tion and guidance ; that the State could best obtain such guidance from 
an institution like Cornell University, and more especially from Cornell 
University itself because of the intimate relations of the State with 
that institution ; that, as the State could not use lards already owned 
by it for the forestr}' experiment, it must secure the use pf lands be- 
longing to other persons ; that the State, in carrying out its forest 
policy, could and should promote the establishment, and aid in the 
maintenance of a forestry college, — and to make the college practi- 
cally effective should provide it with the means to obtain suitable 
lands for forestry experiments' ; that these lands could not be State lands 
because upon such lands there could be no cutting ; and that the Uni- 
versity, therefore, should itself purchase the lands and, in considera- 
tion of the appropriation made by the State, should undertake to con- 
vey the lands to the State at the end of thirty years. 

There would seem to be little doubt from the papers already quoted 
from that the Governor and Legislature were of the opinion that 
within thirty years the purpose of the present drastic constitutional 
prohibition against any cutting, good or bad, in the Adirondacks, 



19 

•would have been sufl5ciently carried out, and that thereafter the pub- 
lic forests of the State of New York, like those of France or Germany, 
would, under some constitutional amendment, be used upon a careful 
and rational plan of forest culture. 

I append to these Notes statements which fairly exhibit enlightened 
public sentiment on this question : 

1. Extracts from the address made by President Roosevelt before 
the Society of American Foresters on 26th March, 1903. 

2. An extract from the manuscript of a paper to be presented at its 
coming meeting to the American Institute of Mining Engineers by 
Prof. Rossiter W. Raymond, the Secretary of the Institute, upon the 
History of Forest Engineering in the United States. L,earning that 
Prof. Raymond was about to read this paper and that in it he had 
considered the problems which bear upon the interest of the State of 
New York in continuing the Cornell experiment, I have obtained his 
permission to use the material and include herewith his letter of per- 
mission to me together with the paper. They show that the manner 
of conducting the Cornell experiment has the very warm support of 
this leader of practical scientific thought in the United States. 

3. Editorial from the "New York Evening Post" of 20th Febru- 
ary, 1902. 

4 Editorial from the " New York Evening Post " of 6th June, 1903. 



I. Extracts frora the address upon Forestry and Foresters 
delivered by President Roosevelt before the Society of 
American Foresters on 26th March, 1903. 

And now, first and foremost, you can never afford to forget for one 
moment what is the object of our forest policy. That object is not to 
preserve the forests because they are beauiiful, though that is good in 
itself, nor because they are refuges for the wild creatures of the wild- 
erness, though that, too, is good in itself ; but the primary object of 
our forest policy, as of the land policy of the United States, is the - 
making of prosperous homes. * * * 

You yourselves have got to keep this practical object before your 
mind ; to remember that a forest which contributes nothing to the 
wealth, progress, or safety of the country is of no interest to the 
Government and should be of little interest to the forester Your at- 
tention must be directed to the preservation of the forests, not as an 
end in itself, but as a means of preserving and increasing the prosper- 
ity of the nation. * * * 

The forest problem is in many ways the most vital internal problem 
in the United States. * * «^ 

The relation between the forests and the whole mineral industry is 
an extremely intimate one ; for, as every man who has had experi- 
ence in the West knows, mines cannot be developed without timber — 
usually not without timber close at hand. In many regions through- 
out the arid country ore is more abundant than wood, and this means 
that if the ore is of low grade, the transportation of timber from any 
distance being out of the que.stion, the use of the mine is limited by 
the amount of timber available. 

The very existence of lumbering, of course — and lumbering is the 
fourth great industry of the United States,*' depends upon the success 

*' " The industry of lumber and timber products ranks second 
among those of the census classification luhen measured by the vol- 
ume of capital employed, and third when measured by the average 
number of wage earners and the total amount of zvages paid, but it 
falls to the fourth rank when considered on the basis of the gross 
value and to the fifth in the net value of products.'" ( Twelfth Cen- 
sus, Vol. VII, p. CLXII ) 

of our work as a nation in putting practical forestry into effective op- 
eration. 

As it is with mining and lumbering, so it is in only a less degree 
with transportation, manufactures, commerce in general. The rela- 
tion of all of these industries to forestry is of the most intimate and 
dependent kind * * * 

As all of you know, the forest resources of our country are already 
seriously depleted. * * * 

The United States is exhausting its forest supplies far more rapidly 
than they are being produced. The situation is grave, and there is 
only one remedy. That remedy is the introduction of practical for- 
estry on a large scale, and of course that is impossible without trained 
meii, men trained in the closet and also by actual field work under 
practical conditions. 



21 

II, Extract from the Manuscript Draft of a Paper on the His- 
tory of Forest-Engineering in the United States, to be 
presented to the American Institute of Mining Engi- 
neers, at its Meeting in New York City, October, 1903, 
by PROF. ROSSITER W. RAYMOND, Mining Engi 
neer, Secretary of the Institute. 

The situation as it existed in 1898, was this : A few individuals and 
corporations in the United States had made more or less intelligent 
experiments in forest-management. An American Forestry Associa- 
tion, covering the whole country, and numerous State Forestry Asso- 
ciations, had been formed to influence public opinion in favor of 
some scientific general scheme of forest-administration ; and books on 
arboriculture, including some reference to forestry, had received rec- 
ognition from the press and a ready sale, which showed a lively pub- 
lic interest in the subject. The economic peril was coming to be 
realized, and Americans generally were convinced that something 
should be done to prevent the destruction of water-powers, the occur- 
rence of disastrous floods, and the almost irrevocable exhaustion of 
the timber-supply. But no one could say exactly what could be done. 

The United States, through various Acts of Congress, and the oper- 
ations of the Division of Forestry, had already accomplished much 
work preparatory to a reform of the colossal waste of forest-resources. 
The establishment of forest-reserves on the public land ; the mainten- 
ance of some degree of vigilance and discipline to prevent conflagra- 
tions ; the prosecution of timber-thieves ; the enactment of laws to 
encourage the planting of trees ; the conduct of experimental investi- 
gations and the compilation of statistics concerning the amount, 
nature, growth, use and value of American forest- species ; and the 
circulation of public documents containing helpful and educative in- 
formation had done much to prepare the popuhir sentiment for more 
decisive measures. But the federal government had not created any 
school of instruction, except the Division of Forestry, wliich was a 
good deal better than nothing, but could only train foresters inci- 
dentally and incompletely. Nor had it inaugurated any extended 
forest-experiment, such as was imperatively needed both for the edu- 
cation of competent foresters, and for the study of American condi- 
tions. 

The legislatures of sundry States had shown a vague conviction of 
the importance of the problem on its economic as well as its aesthetic 
side But beyond such feeble remedies as "arbor-days" and 
premiums for tree planting, and laws for the prevention of forest-fires, 
no State had as yet supplied the pressing double need of a College of 
Forestry and a tract for forest investigations and experiments on a 
working scale. 

Meanwhile, the pressure of a swiftly-approaching economic disaster 
was felt by those States which supplied forest materials ; those which 
were con-uming, as well as exporting their own ; and those which 
were supporting their building and manufacturing industries chiefly 
by importation. In fifty years or less, at the existing rate of destruc- 
tion, the available timber reserves of the United States would be 
practically gone. It was high time to do whatever could be done at 
once ; to learn what could be done in future ; and to train the men 



22 

who were to do it, for the prevention, postponement or amelioration 
of this disaster. 

Under our democratic system of individual enterprise, it might have 
been expected that private citizens or corporations, foreseeing the 
coming failure of the timber-supply, would have prepared for the 
large profit then to be realized, by commencing to develop forests of 
valuable woods by the various methods of forestry, especially the re- 
plantation of denuded lands. In certain favored localities, this could 
have been done, at a profit which would have repaid, after a period 
of years, the original and annual expense with moderate interest, 
while thenceforward the land would have been a permanent source of 
increasing revenue. But the general ignorance of forestry as a busi- 
ness was such that a piece of land, several years after successful re- 
plantation, was worth no more in market than if it had been just de- 
nuded. In other words, a coming forest-crop added no value to the 
land, unless it were very nearly ready to be harvested. Indeed, since 
it had to be tended at some annual expense, and since browsing cattle, 
as well as reckless campers must be kept out of it, it would bring, 
perhaps, a smaller price than a piece of wild brush-pasture. Individ- 
ual capitalists were not to be blamed, therefore, if they shrank from 
the cultivation of a crop which would require annual expenditure for 
years, and could not be sold without heavy loss until the time of har- 
vest was at hand. People will take that risk for oranges, because 
they have examples before them of what will reward the patient cul- 
ture of orange-trees. But regular economic silviculture was unknown 
here ; and the public must see it before they would believe it. 

Moreover, there were a hundred questions as to local conditions, 
such as : the best American tiees for certain uses, and in specified 
localities ; the best way to plant or thin out ; the rate of growth and 
the amount and kind of required protection ; the proper method to be 
chosen in each locality, with due regard to the commercial utilization 
of the product. We have heard a good deal of amateur talk lately, 
about American, as distinguished from German, forestry. In one 
sense, this antithesis is absurd, because there is no such thing as 
either an American or a German science Everything that has ever 
been proposed here, with any claim to be called forestry at all, has 
been done over and over again in Germany, as in other countries. 
There is but one science of forestry ; and it consists in the application 
of certain established principles to varying circumstances, and there- 
fore in various ways. In another sense, however, the antithesis may 
(somewhat clumsily, I admit) state a truth, namely, that the mere 
blind copying, in an American district, of one out of the many German 
methods would not be wise. In fact, it would be only less unwise 
than the choice of some other German method, and its advocacy, after 
rechristening it as " American," for all the United States. This was 
indeed the overwhelming reason for such study and practical trial of 
American conditions as will lead to the intelligent choice of suitable 
methods, and a popular appreciation of them ; and that could be done 
only upon a tract of varied topographical and other features, and of 
considerable extent, parts of which could be made demonstrative of 
various problems and methods. 

New York was already at the head of all the States in appreciation 
of the importance of forestry engineering. It contained a large area 



23 

of -wilderness, the greater part of which had been acquired from time 
to time by private owners, while the rest still belonged to the State. 
By successive steps, which I need not here describe in detail, many 
lands in default for taxes were restored to the State, while large areas 
were purchased and added to the "Forest Preserve." I think the 
general expectation was, that this region was to be maintained pri- 
marily as a protection of streams against floods, or, more specifically, 
to secure a uniform water-supply for the Erie Canal, — a purpose which 
had been suggested by Gov. Dewilt Clinton himself, the author of 
that great water-way, and especially emphasized by Gov. Horatio 
Seymiour, on whose recommendation, in 1872, a State Park Commis- 
sion was created, to make investigation and suggest action for the 
protection of this water-supply. 

This was a praiseworthy purpose, and will become miich more im- 
portant if the Erie canal be enlarged in capacity, although a large part 
of the Adirondack water could not be utilized for the canal, because it 
flows into the St. Lawrence. Fortunately, what could be so utilized 
at all can be protected without sacrificing the economic management 
of the forests. 

But afterwards the idea rapidly gained ground, that the entire area 
of the State Adirondack lands should be made a game preserve and 
park. This use of them would be proper enough, if the State chose 
to forego the revenue obtainable by systematic economic forestry, and 
if it were unwilling that any, even a very small, part of them should 
be used for experiment or education in such forestry. But there was 
no need to carry it so far as to impose an annual expense upon the 
State, without permitting even such cutting and sale of timber, from 
time to time, as would repay the cost of inspection, protection against 
fire, enforcement of the game-laws, etc. Above all, the creation of 
such a " Park " did not necessarily forbid the selection of a compara- 
tively small area for experimental forestry, without hindering the 
pleasures or offending the taste of tourists and sportsmen, or destroy- 
ing the protection of streams. This, I believe, was the idea of Col. 
William F. Fox, State Superintendent of the Forest Preserve, who is 
fairly to be regarded as the originator of the plan of the experiment. 

But the Constitutional Convention of 1894 placed in the new con- 
stitution an express prohibition of all cutting of wood upon the 
Forest Preserve. The American Forestry Association, at that time 
holding a meeting in the White Mountains, forwarded an earnest 
protest, but in vain ; and the friends of economic forestry felt, for a 
while, as if it had received a mortal blow, not because they had 
de.sired the destruction of the Adirondack Park, but because they had 
hoped that, in some corner of it, important scientific work might be 
done, while the rest was kept sacred to sport and pleasure. 

A way was found, however, to carry out Mr. Fox's plan, without 
violating the Constitution, by enabling Cornell University to purchase 
a piece of land under a contract that on it the University should 
conduct the experiment and at the end of thirty years convey it to 
the State. During that period it was provided that the University 
might ' ' plant, raise, cut and sell timber * * * with a view to ob- 
taining and imparting knowledge concerning the scientific manage- 
ment and use of forests, their regulation and administration, the pro- 
duction, harvesting and reproduction of wood crops, and earning a 



24 

revenue therefrom." By the same act, the College of Forestry was 
established at Cornell University. 

As a working-capital for the forest experiment, $30,000 was appro- 
priated, and it was provided that moneys realized by the sale of wood 
might be used to restore or enlarge this working-capital. Of course, 
neither Cornell University nor any other party could receive any 
profits. Everything earned was to be used in the " College Forest." 

The commercial conditions thus imposed upon the undertaking 
■were a consequence of the unfortunate Constitutional provision above 
mentioned. The State, unable to devote a small fraction of its present 
Forest Preserve to this all-important object, was forced to contract with 
Cornell University that the latter should accept a grant of outside land ; 
and conduct on it, for the State, an experiment in economic forestry ; 
and agree to convey the land to the State after the experiment was 
sufiiciently well under way to demonstrate results for the guidance of 
the policy of the State. After going to the expense of advancing the 
money called for by its contract with Cornell, the Legislature natur- 
ally felt that the experiment ought not to demand further annual 
outlays of public money. It must be made to pay its own way, by 
the sale of wood animally cut upon the tract. If it had been consti- 
tutionally practicable to take for this purpose a small part of the 
more than one million acres already owned by the State, the Legisla- 
ture might have made an annual appropriation for the experiment, 
without requiring the cutting of timber to pay expenses. 

This necessity had to be borne in mind in the selection of a suitable 
tract. Besides presenting a grea*^ variety of topographical and other 
conditions, the tract must furnish wood enough to pa}' for all the for- 
estry work done in connection with it. 

The particular tract selected was owned by parties who were de- 
sirous to sell it, and, if they had not sold it to the University, would 
have sold it to commercial purchasers, who would have exercised 
their undoubted right to denude it of its timber, without leaving any 
screen along roads or boundaries, or planting a single tree in the 
bared area, and putting all the profits in their own pockets. Under 
the "College Forest" arrangement, a part of the tract was to be har- 
vested to pay expenses ; all profits were to go to an object of scien- 
tific importance and practical usefulness ; and (as is shown by the 
contract under which this cutting has been done) a forest-screen 25 
rods wide would be left along rivers, streams, ponds, highways, boun- 
dary-lines and fire-lines. Evidently the owners of adjoining land 
were much better off than if the forest had gone the usual road to 
reckless destruction for private gain. 

The situation, after the consummation of this arrangement, was 
this : The State of New York had solemnly, through its Constitu- 
tion, made more than a million acres of the Adirondack region a per- 
manent park for sportsmen and tourists. Nobody proposed to touch 
this luxury forest ; and the constitutional dedication of it as a per- 
petual wilderness had already encouraged many wealthy persons to 
establish their summer-homes on small areas of private land within it, 
secure in the preservation, at no cost to themselves, of the "virgin 
forest" surrounding them. The Adirondacks had become a fashion- 
able resort. But the State had also deemed it wise to establish a Col- 
lege of Forestry, and a "College Forest" outside of this inviolable 
park, using for the latter purpose a tract sure to be denuded anyhow, 
the operations upon which would work neither harm nor disturbance 



25 

to any one. It seems strange that those who had already received 
gratis such a benefaction from the State as the Adirondack Park 
should object to the small College Forest outside of it. Must the 
State give millions to wealth, and nothing to science and progress ? 

I will not here discuss in detail the results of the College Forest ex- 
periment thus far. It is hardly fair to judge, in less than three years, 
operations which were expressly organized by the Legislature to ex- 
tend over a period of thirty years. But it is certainly known from 
the annual reports, and from other sources, that important informa- 
tion has already been obtained. The operation, made necessary by 
the law, of cutting wood to pay expenses, though the one most talked 
about, is not the real experiment at all. 

An abandonment of this work would be most calamitous. New 
York would thereby sacrifice her proud position as the pioneer in this 
new department of American economics. The Legislature of New 
York has never pronounced any such doom upon it. I trust it never 
will. If it does, and if the Trustees of Cornell University finally 
abandon the College of Forestry, which they have recently "sus- 
pended," the disgrace to the Empire State, and the injury to the 
cause of economic forestry will be complete. But the right thing will 
certainly be done — to our shame, and at a loss of vitally important 
time, no doubt — but somehow and somewhere by somebody. And it 
will stand as the one stain upon the scutcheon of the Empire State, 
that she knew her duty so well as to begin to do it — yet turned back 
from it, and did it not. 

R. W. Raymond. 

[Letter froxa Prof. B. W. Raymond,.] 

New York, July ist, 1903. 
Edward M. Shepard, Esq., 

26 Liberty Street, 

New York City. 

My Dear Sir : In accordance with your request, I send you 
herewith my statement and opinion concerning the " College Forest" 
established by the Legislature of New York. 

Although not a trained professional forester, I may claim some 
right to be heard on this subject, because of my long connection with 
it, as an observer and, to some extent, an author. 

Forty-four years ago, I was studying my profession as mining en- 
gineer in Freiberg, Saxony, only an afternoon's walk from the Saxon 
School of Forestry at Tharandt ; and I date from that period my in- 
terest in forestry, which was subsequently enhanced by my inspection 
of European forests, and my acquaintance with foresters, during the 
three years of my study and travel at that period. 

Beginning in this country, after my service in the U. S. Army 
during the Civil War, the practice of my profession, I traveled 
extensively (at first as consulting engineer for private parties, and 
afterwards as U. S. Commissioner of Mining in the States and Terri- 
tories in and West of the Rocky Mountains), in many parts of the 
Union, and learned much concerning forest-conditions in the larger 
portion of its area. 



26 

Both in the far western region and in many Eastern States, the ques- 
tion of timber supply was then, as it has been ever since, a vital one 
to the mining and metallurgical industry. The availability of timber 
for underground supports, of wood-fuel for steam-engines and (mostly 
as charcoal) for metallurgical operations, and of lumber for bviildings, 
was a foremost consideration. in every professional mining report. I 
was thus led to look with consternation upon the progressive and 
wasteful destruction of the forest resources of the United States, and 
to study the possibilities of forest-engineeriug in the United States as 
a guard against the foreseen disaster. 

I have followed with intere.st (and with a knowledge not confined 
wholly to the contents of public documents) the progress of this im- 
peratively necessary movement in the United States. 

Many years ago, while, as Engineer of Messrs. Cooper & Hewitt of 
New York, I had general advisory charge of large woodland tracts, 
owned by that firm, I employed Mr. B. E. Fernow, first to examine 
and report upon these tracts, and subsequently as the resident mana- 
ger of one of them. I believe that the practical, ability displayed by 
him in this capacity led to his appointment as Chief of the Division 
of Forestry at Washington, and subsequently as Director of the Cor- 
nell College of Forestry, for both of which places he was heartily 
recommended by Abram S. Hewitt. I have had continuous knowl- 
edge of his labors, difficulties and achievements in both, and, from 
time to time, I have published critical comments thereon, as well as 
reviews of the general situation as to forestry in this country. 

Yours truly, 

R. W. Raymond. 

III. Editorial from the "New York Evening Post," February 
20th, 1902. 

Professor Fernow of the State College of Forestry is likely to be 
completely vindicated, as the result of the hearing before the Forest, 
Fish and Game Commission and the reference of his contracts to the 
Attorney-General. It appears that in this matter the Forestry School 
has come in for criticism of a purely sentimental kind on the part of 
summer residents in the Adirondacks. The school owns a tract of 
30,000 acres (about seven miles square) of land, mainly forested. 
This tract it must administer in the interest of scientific forestry, not 
of scenic effect. Director Fernow is not planning for this year or 
next, but for the whole future of the school. He must study the 
most lucrative methods of replacing an unprofitable forest by a profit- 
able, for upon this depends the support of his school. This may 
mean the temporary cutting off of entire tracts which it is undesirable 
to maintain as " mixed forest." It was, in fact, the cutting off of a 
few hundred acres last year which brought down upon the school 
great and apparently quite undeserved criticism. An article in the 
last number of Nature shows that replanting has progressed satis- 
factorily, the college having set out a hundred trees for every four 
cut. It is not generally understood that the cutting which has been 
done affects not the State reserve, but the especial preserve of the 
school. No one can doubt that Professor Fernow is competent to do 



27 

what is best for the future with this tract. He will surely feel that it 
is in the interest of his school to avoid, so far as possible, offending 
even the sensibilities of those who wish a practical forester to act like 
a park commissioner. 

IV. Editorial from the "New York Evening Post," 
June 6th, 1903. 

The State also made an annual appropriation for its School of For- 
estry. That of 1902 was for $10,000, where foo.ooo had been asked 
for. This year the appropriation was vetoed by the Governor, and 
now the Attorney General has been requested by certain summer resi- 
dents of the Upper Saranac Lake region to bring an action to annul 
the "grant of forest lands to Cornell University "—so the dispatches 
read. Naturally the newspapers have fallen into the habit of consid- 
ering the University the beneficiary of both the grant and the appro- 
priation. This is not the first time that the mistake has been made, 
although the fact is that the State is indebted to the University in re- 
spect to this school. The University has no pecuniary interest in the 
School of Forestry that is not common to all citizens of New York. 
What is at the bottom of this rage against the School of Forestry it is 
difficult to see, unless it may be the mere objection of campers, hunt- 
ers, and summer residents. The objectors, whoever they may be, say 
that the State Constitution is violated by the removal of timber from 
the ground " for purely commercial purposes." There has been no 
removal of timber for any such purpose. If the science of forestry is 
to be taught at all, it must be done by first clearing some portion of 
the land for the reception of new growth. The timber removed would 
naturally be sold on the general ground of economy and for the spe- 
cial purpose of reimbursing the State for the cost of cutting and haul- 
ing. The only question which now confronts the State is that of con- 
tinuing the scientific instruction in forestry which it has begun or of 
abandoning it. 



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